Vattenfall All Set To Fill Up 200MW Thermal Storage Tower In Berlin

Swedish multinational power company Vattenfall is all set to fill a 45m-high, 200MW-rated thermal energy storage facility with water in Berlin, Germany. The tank is a 2,600MWh system.

The tank boasts of holding a capacity of 56 million litres of water that will be heated at 98 degrees celsius. The tank will be merged with the power-to-heat system of the power company’s adjoining Reuter West power plant.

In order to meet the heating needs of customer households, the water will be fed directly into the district heating network, a spokesperson from the company said. The commercial operations will kickstart April next year, preceded by testing. The filling, however, may take two months.

Jornt Spijksma, Project manager at Vattenfall, called the fusion of Reuter West and the storage tank an “optimal, fossil-free and future-proof component to supply our Berlin customers with heat.”

He further explicated that during the surplus of wind energy, the power-to-heat system can transform surplus into heat, thereby minimizing the need to curtail wind production. The storage tank also has the ability to combine heat from industrial processes or even waste heat from waste water.

The spokesperson stated that the tank also holds the potential to fuse with other renewable sources of heat.

The storage tank will ensure that the heating needs of consumers are met even during the harsh winters of Berlin, the company concluded.